


black side of the moon

by saunatonttu



Category: Haikyuu!!
Genre: 2nd person POV, Angst, Gen, Pre-Canon, Present Tense
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-05-20
Updated: 2015-05-20
Packaged: 2018-03-31 11:34:34
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,565
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3976561
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/saunatonttu/pseuds/saunatonttu
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Your expression falls: your eyes widen, your mouth curls down half-parted as if asking…</p><p> </p><p>  <i>why, niichan? why are you there?</i></p><p> </p><p>...but you don’t cry even as your faith crumbles, shatters sharply like glass.</p>
            </blockquote>





	black side of the moon

**Author's Note:**

> I was having a bad day and word-vomited this  
> I'm sorry

The magic fades when your eyes meet your brother’s. He’s on the other side, right across from you, but you can see his face as clearly as if he were right in front of you.

Akiteru looks right back at you, his cheers dying out as his eyes meet yours.

You’re not supposed to be there.

But you are, because who wouldn’t want to be there for the most important match of their brother’s life?

Your expression falls: your eyes widen, your mouth curls down half-parted as if asking…

 

_why, niichan? why are you there?_

 

...but you don’t cry even as your faith crumbles, shatters sharply like glass.

“Pathetic.” The word burns you like acid as you utter it with slumped shoulders and defeated tone, like you lost something of extreme importance.

.

.

.

He doesn’t come find you like you’re afraid of when he comes home. Instead he walks past your room with heavy steps and silence more suffocating than the lump in your throat.

You’re morbidly curious, but maybe you also want to yell at him for being pathetic enough to lie to you (even if it’s you that’s the truly sad case out of you two). Maybe you want to scream at Akiteru for not being the brother you wanted him to be.

But you never end up doing any of that, because when you reach his room, you hear it.

Akiteru is crying, and it is not a pretty sound.

It’s the sound of accumulated lies catching up to him, and you can only listen to wordlessly while peeking through the crack of the open door, your heart numb and empty from the anger you felt just a moment ago.

Akiteru’s anguish is what will stay with you for years.

.

.

.

It creeps into your mind like a poisonous snake, with sharp fangs and venom that taints your joy.

If you enjoyed volleyball before, you don’t now.

The best part has always been showing off what he learned to Akiteru; the best part was to be able to gush about the sport with your brother, who would ruffle your hair and smile bright and proud -- as if to say that’s my little brother.

You don’t do that with him, these days.

Maybe that’s why volleyball loses its meaning in your still childish heart.

 

(It’s not Akiteru’s fault, really.

 

But you just can’t forgive him.

 

Yourself.)

.

.

.

Receiving still sucks. It’s hard, impossible even when it comes to trying to aim the ball high towards the setter.

You see the scrapes on your knees, feel the aches in your bones, and it’s far from pleasant.

You’re in middle school now, and your heart just isn’t in volleyball anymore. Yamaguchi is on the team with you, of course, and he tries. He tries and flails, but he’s not a starting member.

You tell him it’s irritating that he tries so hard for something silly like a club activity.

He looks away, knowing why you say the things you say.

Sometimes you wish, in futility, that you were still able to think volleyball worth to be invested in.

You drown those thoughts with blaring music, loud enough to muffle Yamaguchi’s voice as well.

You don’t want to hear.

So you stop listening.

Yamaguchi stops talking about volleyball on their spare time after that, but you see the way his eyes turn towards the gym in regret whenever you two pass it by and skip.

(It’s not often, but whenever you do, Yamaguchi and you go get strawberry shortcake and soda to drown out the bad emotions, the bad days.)

.

.

.

At least Akiteru had been quick to move out after being accepted into a relatively well-known university, so you don’t have to watch his face during dinners and breakfasts so much anymore.

There is still the rare occasion when he does come home -- some weekends, some vacations -- and those are a pain for you.

You do everything in your capacity to avoid him. Locking yourself into your room with headphones over your ears turns out to be effective.

 

The first time he came home for a visit, he ran into you when you exited the bathroom.

Both of you froze, not knowing what to do, what to say, he perhaps even more speechless than you.

You regained your mental footing quickly enough and brushed past him wordlessly, your fingers curling and curling as the word pathetic echoed off the corners of your unforgiving mind.

He should have gotten used to you ignoring him by then.

Akiteru shouldn’t have choked out a _Kei, wait_ when you left him behind.

You walked away from your brother.

And you didn’t feel a thing -- you had come to accept the dullness in your chest when it concerned Akiteru.

 

It’s fine.

 

_It’s fine._

 

**It’s fine.**

.

.

.

You don’t hate Akiteru. Not really.

You hate yourself for expecting things, for not having any sense of reality, for turning Akiteru into the liar he was.

You can’t look at him in the face.

You can’t look at yourself in the mirror, knowing that you’d see something even more loathsome reflected.

It doesn’t help that you know you’re too thin, too tall, too much full of spite and anger just waiting to reach the brim.

Any day now, you might just explode.

Or not -- because the anger leaves as quick as it comes and leaves a familiar sense of indifference in its wake.

.

.

.

You still play volleyball in the third year of middle school (whose captain Akiteru used to be). _For shits and giggles_ , some members of the team theorize, and they’re not exactly wrong.

You don’t know exactly why, either -- practices leave you with bruises and aches to accompany the growing pains.

You think it might have something to do with Yamaguchi, who isn’t dead set on playing until he drops either.

A more probable answer is that you don’t hate it as much as you think you do, but you rarely entertain that thought.

It’s so much easier to hate the thing that hurt Akiteru than allow yourself get involved in it too much.

You get hurt easily, since you don’t have much muscles, and the volleyball team laughs at it -- “ _yeah, definitely not basketball material either, that Tsukishima”_ \-- and you grit your teeth before shooting them a smile that makes your eyes narrow with mean intentions.

They shut up, except for the one idiot that thinks he’s above of you just because he’s a starter and you’re not.

It’s just a club activity to you, an extracurricular that you don’t need to invest your whole life in.

.

.

.

The team doesn’t make far in the spring tournament, and you’re sure enough to tell that annoying teammate of yours _told you so_ when he comes back from the court with hanging head and clenched fists.

Naturally, he punches you when no one else sees.

The blood on your lip tastes like disappointments, and you’re already too used to those to even give a crap.

“Oh my god, Tsukki, what happened?!”

Yamaguchi, naturally, frets over you, offering you a napkin with trembling hands and wide eyes. You take the napkin with a quiet thanks, but don’t reply to his question before he repeats it more frantically.

“Nothing at all,” you say, voice muffled as you press the soft fabric against your nostrils.

“We should really report him, Tsukki,” Yamaguchi says, face wrinkling in concern. You almost snort; of course he knows just what happened.

“No.”

“But--”

“ _Shut up_ , Yamaguchi,” you hiss out the words a little too strongly, but it’s the glare you send him that makes Yamaguchi relent and curl into himself.

You don’t really care that you might have made him upset as you finish wiping your nose clean off blood, and get back to the team like there’s no issue. You’ll be watching the rest from the audience’s seats, and you will still not care.

The King of the Court makes his appearance, too, and he already gets on your nerves.

You think you’d hate it if you ended up in the same high school as him.

.

.

.

You don’t think much on what high school to choose, even though your grades would open up several other options as well.

The choice is so obvious that it makes bile rise in your throat when your parents talk about it.

_“Karasuno is so close, Kei-chan, and your brother attended it, too!”_

You don’t tell them that you’ve been thinking about it too, though mostly it’s been a sarcastic thought, do-it-for-the-vine kind of one.

Akiteru’s face, when he sits down at the dinner table with youand your parents and hears about this, lights up. “That’s great!”

You would have to be blind to miss the twitch of Akiteru’s mouth and the unease rigidness of his shoulders during the dinner. You frown and stare at your plate, your stomach already full but your mom always gives you too much to eat.

“I’m done,” you say quietly as you stand up and leave.

Akiteru says nothing, but you can hear him sigh with your parents.

You hate this but you cannot change anymore.

Who are you even mocking by entering Karasuno? Akiteru, or yourself?

You don’t know anymore, but you don’t care either way as you lock yourself in your room and listen to your music, your fingers toying with the dinosaur toy Akiteru got you for last Christmas.

_Pathetic._


End file.
